You know when you have an idea for something and you have that feeling inside of you like butterflies….this is something. Well that is what was going on with me in November of 2022. I wanted to help more moms that were struggling with parenting, self-love and business. I wanted to help them fall back in love with each of those things.
How could I do that? What could I do to support them on an even deeper level?
I wanted to host a Virtual Summit. This summit would be something I worked on for 4 months straight…planning, ironing out all of the details, the how’s, the why’s and the who. It was so much fun. Building, creating, collaborating with others, getting out of my comfort zone again and again.
I knew I couldn’t do it alone, so I found experts in those areas. And unfortunately one of the women I hired to help me create the summit and the systems to make it flow…actually cloned all of my information and took it to create her own summit. She took the page flows, the pricing, parts of the email verbiage to use as her own without my consent or permission.
I was sick to my stomach for days.
Questioning myself.
Was I wrong in thinking this isn’t right?
Because I paid her to do this for me, does that give her the right to use it for her own?
Maybe this is how business is done between women?
I’m not a good business women?
I shouldn’t trust people?
How can I trust myself?
What is wrong with me?
Why would someone think they can do this to me?
I am a push over.
I am weak.
I’m too nice.
All of these things went through my head. All the things that were wrong with me…not her.
I am proud of myself because I did reach out to her and had a very hard conversation about what she had done. I do not like confrontation but my body and mind wouldn’t let me stop thinking about it. When confronted, she said she was being lazy and admitted that she was wrong to take it.
I spent the next month, researching to find other systems to rebuild my whole summit. I spent days rebuilding and getting my email list switched over to another location where I would hopefully keep my creations safe. The worst part is I spent months shutting down my voice and hiding..cocooning, trying to feel safe.
You see when someone betrays you like this….it doesn’t go away. I have spent the last 12 months:
Working on feeling better.
Working on trusting others and myself.
Working on finding my voice again.
Working on feeling my emotions, all of them.
Working on building that belief back in myself.
Working on being stronger each day.
Working on breaking old stories and beliefs about myself and people.
It is Fucking hard. Really hard. I get triggered from this experience all the time. I have distanced myself from groups because I don’t want to see this persons name. I had shut down posting on social media a lot because I didn’t know what to say, feel and didn’t want to blast this persons name out into the inter webs and then be labeled a drama queen…a tattle tale, airing her dirty business!! I slept a lot. I got internally sick because of this betrayal. I felt like I lost my power…or I gave it away. I gave my power to someone else and instead of that person going and hiding for what she did…she was out there living it up continuing to do summits (with my formatting) and I was hiding. Hiding from the truth. Hiding from not wanting to see her. Hiding from myself.
Why...Why did I do that? I discovered during a session with my coach recently that I said…I feel like I am protecting this person. I am protecting the unethical business woman. The woman who is showcased as a high upstanding business woman. And it infuriates me to be honest. It truly pisses me off that she is still leading a group of women even though she isn’t acting of the highest standard herself.
How can you steal from someone else, be confronted by the person, and then continue to use those templates that you stole and keep doing it. Don’t you feel dishonest? Don’t you cringe every time you use the thing you stole? Maybe no one has been brave enough and courageous enough to call you out because they are scared and don’t want to cause ‘DRAMA”. Or be ridiculed but it is the truth. If someone writes something and it is TRUE and there is evidence…how are they wrong. They aren’t.
Women have been taught to not cause drama.
Keep it nice.
But if there are leaders doing this and people don’t speak up…then they will just continue to hurt others.
As Tom Cruise said….You Can’t Handle the Truth. If you can’t handle the truth then unfriend me. If you don’t want to read the truth, then you are part of the unsaid drama…the old programming of quieting women who have been wronged in one way or another.
I am not a ‘GOOD GIRL’. I don’t want to be a good girl. I want to be good human. I want to be a truthful person. I want to be a trusted person. I want to be a good listener. I want to be a good leader. I want to be the type of person that doesn’t always take the easy road and wants to learn and grow. I want to be respected for doing the hard thing.
I am not the type of person that will be told you are a good girl and handled this with integrity. It is almost like thank you for not saying the truth. Thank you for letting a business woman take from you. Thank you for staying quiet. Thank you for not harming her reputation. Thank you for shutting up. Thank you for taking it and moving on. Thank you for taking the higher road.
What does the higher road even mean? This might be the next post…
Be strong my fellow incredible human.
Stay strong in your truth.
Stay strong in your voice.
Stay strong in your power.
Stay strong in your knowing.
